Abstract
Methane (CH4) is the second greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2), and a quite portion of CH4 is released from permafrost and cold wetlands at high latitudes and altitudes. Global warming is causing permafrost thawing that results in release of the permafrost stored ancient carbon by microbial degradation at elevated temperatures. Methanogenesis is exclusively implemented by methanogenic Archaea although thus far only a few of the psychrophilic or psychrotolerant methanogen species have been cultured. In this chapter, we present methanogenesis pathways prevalent in the cold regions at both the earth poles and the high altitude Tibetan Plateau, as well as information on cold adapted methanogens that are responsible for the methane production. At the last, we show the distinct cold adaptive mechanisms found in methanogenic Archaea.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the NSFC grants (31430001, 31670049) in supporting our study on the methanogenesis in Tibetan Plateau, from these projects we leant the knowledge and enable us to accomplish this chapter.
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Dong, X., Tian, J., Qi, L., Li, L. (2018). Methanogenesis at High Latitudes. In: Stams, A., Sousa, D. (eds) Biogenesis of Hydrocarbons. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53114-4_11-1
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